As a father, James Davis was a little concerned when his 18-year-old autistic son, Christopher, came home asking to ride home in his new friend's truck two years ago.

"High school kids, for lack of a better term, are mean to each other," Davis said. "I was afraid they might possibly take him out and be mean to him, beat him up."

Not wanting to discourage his son who hadn't made many friends in his time at Pottsville High School, Davis said he would let Christopher ride with the friend on one condition: The new friend would have to come to the Davis' house first.

The new friend was a little nervous about the meeting, so he took some backup.

Davis soon discovered he knew Zack's mom from when he went to school in Dover, which set his mind at ease because he said he knew Zack's parents, Melissa and Tim Mitchell, were "good people."

So with the pre-screening over with, Christopher now had a friend from school.

Zack recalled he and Christopher had an art class during the 2009-10 school year and just started talking one day.

"We started out talking about James' truck, and he told me he liked my truck, and we just started talking about it," Zack said.

After a few visits to the Mitchell house, Christopher added another friend, Zack's younger brother Jayme, a sophomore at Pottsville.

Since then, the three boys have become pretty much inseparable, Davis said.

"They hang out all the time," Davis said. "They go four-wheeling. They go driving around in the truck. They play XBox games. They just do regular senior kid stuff. I really appreciate them because he wouldn't have the chance to do that kind of stuff without them. He'd be there every day if I let him."

"We go out in the canyon behind my house and play around on the rocks until Chris can't hardly walk no more," Zack said.

"Then I'll take Chris out on the four-wheeler out to a mud hole," Jayme said "And he'll get stuck a lot."

"We taught him to ride the four-wheeler the way we ride, so he likes to ride ours now," Zack said.

"Whenever he has money, he'll come over and put gas in the four-wheeler. And then use it until it's out," Jayme said.

"And then he'll complain that we don't have any gas." Zack said and laughed.

"Every day, it's 'Can I go over to Zack's?'" Davis said. "And when school's out, he'll ask 'Can I spend the night at Zack's?' And I'll say 'Yeah, sure. Call him and see.' Or Zack will call over here and say 'Can Chris come over?' It might be three or four days before I see him, and I'll have to call him and say 'Hey, you coming home?'"

Davis has noticed quite a change in Christopher since he's been spending time with Zack and Jayme.

"It's turned Christopher into a different person," Davis said. "He used to be bundled in all the time and didn't talk to anybody. Now he's really outgoing. When he first meets someone, he's still a little shy and bashful, but he comes out of it pretty quick. And when he's with those two boys, he usually doesn't meet a stranger when he's with them because he knows no one is going to pick on him."

After one incident in particular, Zack proved he wouldn't stand for anyone teasing or making fun of Christopher.

"We had a kid at school one time that started picking on him and calling him names," Jayme said. "I wasn't there at the time or I would have gotten in trouble, but Zack said something to him. And when I got back to school, I told the guy he better not do it again or he was going to get hurt. ... With (Christopher), it's like he's just one of us. He fits right in with our group. We're not really related, but we say we are. We take up for him whenever anyone says something to him."

Jayme and Zack are not alone in protecting Christopher. Their behavior seems to have worn off on some of their classmates.

"There was one incident with this guy that I thought was a jerk," Zack said. "... But Chris was in the bathroom, and these kids were throwing wet paper towels at him. ... And this guy walks in and looks at the boys and looks at Chris and says 'Why are you doing that?' and the boys said 'It's funny.' So the guy takes a water bottle and dumps it on both guys and says, 'Now I think that's pretty funny, don't you?'"

"He's a very big kid, but he's just never had any kind of self-esteem," Davis said. "He's never had the help of his peers to boost his self esteem, until these two boys came along. ... I really appreciate them standing up for him. They didn't just sit back.

"He's had friends and people who lived around us, but mostly my other sons' friends," he added. "Other than family, he's never had anybody that he's been this close to before."